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Thursday, September 01, 2011

Uh-Oh...Another Reason For Carlos And Me To Move To Washington

Out there in Washington state, two key Democratic state lawmakers--Senator Ed Murray and Representative Jamie Pedersen, gay lawmakers from the 43rd District in Seattle--are considering a major push to try and pass a gay-marriage law in Washington next year.Green hills. Blue water. Gay marriage.

Hmmmmmm.

Jamie Pedersen [l] and Ed Murray [r]

Ed Murray was the prime sponsor of landmark gay-rights legislation approved by the Washington Legislature in 2006 and a domestic-partnership law that passed in 2007. Washington's domestic-partnership law provides same-sex couples legal benefits similar to those of marriage, and is known in some circles as "everything but marriage". Jamie Pedersen has played a significant role in expanding the domestic partnership law over the past several years, but marriage equality advocates say that law does not go far enough.

So, maybe now is the time to get this done, eh? Ed Murray believes that the idea of pushing marriage equality legislation to a floor vote when they reconvene in January, is getting quite serious: "We've always said that domestic partnership was not an end to itself but a path toward marriage."

And though he doesn't believe that the recent passage of marriage equality in new York will help his cause, he does believe that every time marriage equality passes, and the world doesn't fall apart, and locusts don't come, and hell doesn't rise up, that people begin to see the light.

GOP Senator Dan Swecker has consistently voted against gay-rights and domestic-partnership legislation, and believes there would be strong opposition to gay marriage in his caucus: "I think primarily the Republicans, but (also) some Democrats, tend to support the traditional definition of marriage and think it's a mistake to try to change that."

When will these wingnut learn that ttraditional marriage does not exist. Every single marriage, heterosexual and homosexual, is different.

But, working against Dan Swecker is the fact that Democrats currently hold a 27-to-22 majority in the Senate and a 56-to-42 advantage in the House.

A few years ago I watched Washington politicians carefully construct laws each year that would benefit gay partnerships, leading the way to legalizing gay marriage. It was good to see and I hope it works.